African American Performance and Theater History A Critical Reader

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Description: African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and DavidMore...

African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues. Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Black Art Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, articles gathered in the first section, "Social Protest and the Politics of Representation," discuss the ways in which African American theater and performance have operated as social weapons and tools of protest. The second section of the volume, "Cultural Traditions, Cultural Memory and Performance," features, among other essays, Joseph Roach's chronicle of the slave performances at Congo Square in New Orleans and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s critique of August Wilson's cultural polemics. "Intersections of Race and Gender," the third section, includes analyses of the intersections of race and gender on the minstrel stage, the plight of black female choreographers at the inception of Modern Dance, and contemporary representations of black homosexuality by PomoAfro Homo. Using theories of performance and performativity, articles in the fourth section, "African American Performativity and the Performance of Race," probe into the ways blackness and racial identity have been constructed in and through performance. The final section is a round-table assessment of the past and present state of African American Theater and Performance Studies by some of the leading senior scholars in the field--James V. Hatch, Sandra L. Richards, and Margaret B. Wilkerson. Revealing the dynamic relationship between race and theater, this volume illustrates how the social and historical contexts of production critically affect theatrical performances of blackness and their meanings and, at the same time, how African American cultural, social, and political struggles have been profoundly affected by theatrical representations and performances. This one-volume collection is sure to become an important reference for those studying black theater and an engrossing survey for all readers of African American literature.

Acknowledgments

Contributors

African American Performance and Theater History

The Device of Race: An Introduction

Notes

Social Protest and the Politics of Representation

Uncle Tom's Women

Notes

Political Radicalism and Artistic Innovation in the Works of Lorraine Hansberry

Notes

Performance, Neo-Orality, and the Destruction of the "white Thing"

Notes

Beyond a Liberal Audience

Notes

Cultural Traditions, Cultural Memory, and Performance

Reconstructing Congo Square

Notes

The Performativity of Black Women's Faith in the Baptist Church Spiritual Traditions and Its Radical Possibilities for Resistance

Notes

The Chitlin Circuit

A Case Study

Notes

Intersections of Race and Gender

Black Minstrelsy and Double Inversion, Circa 1890

Notes

Exoticism, Dance, and Racial Myths

Notes

Expression of Creative Nomadism and Contemporary African American Playwrights

Notes

The Lessons of Pomo Afro Homos' Dark Fruit

Notes

African American Performativity and the Performance of Race

Acting Out Miscegenation

Notes

The Administration of Race

Notes

The Escape; Or, a Leap to Freedom by William Wells Brown and No Place to Be Somebody by Charles Gordone

*A minimum purchase of $35 is required. Shipping is provided via FedEx SmartPost®
and FedEx Express Saver®. Average delivery time is 1 – 5 business days, but
is not guaranteed in that timeframe. Also allow 1 - 2 days for processing. Free shipping is eligible only in the continental United States and excludes
Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. FedEx service marks used by permission."Marketplace"
orders are not eligible for free or discounted shipping.